Food Storage 101

I have been trying the last few weeks to really look at our food storage and how we need to use it because we have not been really good at rotating the stuff in the #10 cans. I bought 2 of the smaller can rotation units that store on the shelves in the pantry. I really would like to have the big standing units that hold like 300 cans and can hold the #10 cans too but I have no where to put them unless I make Cayden and Cody share a room and turn another bedroom into a storage room. I don't see that happening though. I have been looking at various blogs where the women are super organized and also give out helpful tips, advice and recipes on how to use food storage. Some women have even listed 60 or 90 day recipes using just what you can store and then telling you how much of each item you need. Some days I think that it is helpful and then other days I just get depressed because of all that I don't have or use or even know what to do with. Here are the sites-An Old Fashion Girl and Safely Gathered In and Oh The Places You'll Go. The one with the food storage room is amazing and I am vacillating between awe and despair. A few weeks ago me and the kids pulled out all the big boxes of #10 cans that were in the pantry under my stairs and went through them and made a list of what we had. We also made an inventory of all the other food in both pantries to see what we really have on hand. I have some wheat, rice and macaroni that we canned in 1995. I have actually used the rice and some white beans already a few times and it actually still tastes fine. I got out a can of macaroni a year or so ago and tried to use it but it tasted funny. Also potato pearls I have noticed that have been in a can for a long time have a darker color and a stronger flavor than the new ones. After opening a can of dried apples from our food storage the kids decided that they did not like them. They are too dry for them yet the Walmart ones that are fresher in the packages they think are too chewy. So we will not be purchasing any more of those. I want to find Grits in bulk to can and also butter beans. My kids like those best but the last time I bought them they were frozen and I can't find them here in Logandale or at Walmart where I shop mostly. I have definitely found that you should can what you eat and eat what you can. As stated in my previous posts I have bottled peaches and tomatoes, made peach jam and froze corn off the cob and peaches. My mom and I were trying to decide how economical it was to bottle the peaches because of the work involved. If you buy cases on sale than it is probably cheaper unless the fruit comes from your own tree which it certainly does not here. I guess the point is to know how to bottle and have the equipment on hand to do it if you had to. My amazing friend Serena is drowning in apricots and pears not to mention her huge garden full of peas and beans and squash. She lives in Idaho and has to worry about getting all the produce in before it freezes where as here in lovely Logandale you have to hope that the blazing hot sun does not suffocate and fry whatever you can save from the Squash Bugs. She has been bottling her heart out. I don't think that I could, would, or would want to bottle 47 quarts of apricots but she did and I am impressed but feeling quite exhausted for her! My idea today is to turn my rarely used linen closet into another food storage pantry and get all the boxes out from under my stairs and put them there. If you noticed in the pictures on the Old fashion girl blog she used those see through shorter plastic totes for pasta, brown sugar and powdered sugar. Those will fit nicely in that closet and I am wondering if those can rotation things will fit there as well. I would have to move the blankets and towels from that closet to the other closets in the house but it would work. We do have the closet by Cody's room dedicated to our 72 hour and medical/supply needs. The backpacks are there as well as the totes that have our extra items like hotel size shampoos and stuff like that. Now is a good time to go through our backpacks with Conference coming up and the seasons changing. That is just how I remember to go through our stuff. I coordinate it with Conference time. The next project is to figure out how to use all that wheat we have. That Safely Gathered In site has alot of ideas and just recently there was something about wheat use. I need to get a wheat grinder but those suckers are expensive. I guess if the end comes and we need to use the wheat and can't grind it into flour because we don't have a grinder we can just go outside into our lovely desert and get a few rocks to grind together and make our own mortar and pestle.